Election night sets new social media mark with 28.5 million comments

PHOTO /GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images

Barack Obama brought his social media campaign to an emotional climax, proclaiming victory on Twitter and Facebook just as TV networks were breaking the news. The post was his most re-tweeted -- 472,000 shares in three hours -- according to Twitter's politics account @gov. It was also the most popular ever, topping a message from singer Justin Bieber, website BuzzFeed said.

Barack Obama brought his social media campaign to an emotional climax, proclaiming victory on Twitter and Facebook just as TV networks were breaking the news. The post was his most re-tweeted -- 472,000 shares in three hours -- according to Twitter's politics account @gov. It was also the most popular ever, topping a message from singer Justin Bieber, website BuzzFeed said. (PHOTO /GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images)

David ZurawikThe Baltimore Sun

Tuesday night's election generated a record-setting political coversation of 28.5 million social media comments, according to Bluefin Labs.

The previous high was 12.2 million social media comments made in connection with the second presidential debate, according to the Boston-based firm that specializes in social-media metrics.

The first debate drew 11.2 million comments.

Not surprisingly, the high point Tuesday came between 11:15 and 11:30 p.m. after NBC News, CNN and others projected Barack Obama's re-election.

The rate of comments peaked during that time with 261,026 per minute.

One of the more interesting findings of Bluefin's analysis was that 59 percent of the comments came from women, while only 41 percent were from men. That seems like quite a gender divide.